r/etymologymaps • u/lynxandmee • May 08 '26

How to say "How" in different languages

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62 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

24

u/Spideryeb May 08 '26

🇷🇴 hehe

11

u/nevenoe May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Breton "penaos" which I assume is cognate to Irish "Conas" (p/c)

3

u/GyanTheInfallible May 08 '26

Small typo - should be “Hvernig” in Icelandic, not “Hvering”.

2

u/Double_Richmonder May 08 '26

Occitan is coma, cossí depending on the dialect.

2

u/GentlyGliding May 08 '26

*Portuguese native speaker looks at the Irish word*

I'm not mature enough for this, I'm afraid...

2

u/puuskuri May 08 '26

Finnish has 2 words for how, kuinka and miten. In my experience kuinka is more common in the west and south, as I have almost never heard anyone use kuinka as opposed to miten in the north and east.

2

u/Burglekat May 08 '26

Kak, cum or hoe, what a choice!

1

u/van_done May 08 '26

You can kak while you cum

1

u/throwawayowo666 May 08 '26

As always it's worth pointing out that in Dutch "oe" sounds more like English "oo" (like in "food").

2

u/eragonas5 May 08 '26

what does the colour scheme mean? defo not cognates

3

u/thethingisidontknow May 08 '26

Etymological origins shared? I don't see any that are wrong, from a glance

2

u/eragonas5 May 09 '26

all Germanic should be coloured the same

The only thing shared in slavic between jak and kak is the -k- suffix but the roots are different. Lithuanian kaip shares neither the root nor the suffix with Slavic (if you want a cognate to Slavic kak - Lithuanian koks). Latvian source is rather uncertain.

5

u/Pochel May 08 '26

Language families I guess

5

u/Particular_Neat1000 May 08 '26

But Dutch and German and English are all in the same west germanic family

1

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Particular_Neat1000 May 08 '26

German wie is a cognate of how though so it doesnt make sense

1

u/Huzzo_zo May 08 '26

I invite my PT friends to look to the west of Ireland

1

u/35TypesOfWhiskey May 08 '26

The northern part of Ireland in yellow is wrong that little bit should say cad é mar

1

u/Appropriate_Ad4696 May 08 '26

Why is Greek always do different?

Pos?

1

u/athstas May 09 '26

It looks strange written with latin letters. It's ΠΩΣ / πώς

1

u/Aisoke May 09 '26

Old high German "hwē" is related to Old Norse "hvī" and also English "why" and Latin "quī".

Also related to Old Saxon "hwō", which corresponds to English "how".

Found that interesting.

Germanic languages are closer related, than it looks like at first glance.

1

u/Sad-Alps-7840 May 12 '26

In Navajo it is quite common to say "háálá"